A rumor has been spreading in the past week or so that the U.S. government may have quietly dumped nearly 170,000 Bitcoin (BTC), worth around $20 billion in total.
Namely, while the Freedom of Information Request response from the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) did disclose a total of 28,988 BTC in holdings, valued at approximately $3.4 billion, the fact remains that other federal departments hold the cryptocurrency as well.
In total, the government still holds nearly 198,000 BTC across various wallets owned by the FBI, DOJ, DEA, and several U.S. Attorney’s Offices, which translates to about $23.5 billion, as the most recent data published by Arkham Intelligence suggests.
Government crypto moves
Some of the government’s BTC holdings have been partially liquidated, for example, around 41,700 BTC of the 51,680 BTC seized from James Zhong’s Silk Road stash.
However, Arkham confirms that no tracked wallets have made any such moves in over four months, suggesting no ongoing liquidation activity.
Likewise, not all seized Bitcoin has been legally forfeited, and some of it may be held pending court decisions.
This has created a lot of confusion regarding how much “digital gold” the government really owns as opposed to just holding for the time being.
Bitcoin price remains stable
Despite the rumors, the Bitcoin price has remained relatively stable. At press time, the cryptocurrency was trading at approximately $118,200, down just 0.08% over the past seven days.
Of course, macroeconomic pressures remain, with the Federal Reserve’s restrictive interest rate range of 5.25%–5.50% and a potential $5 trillion U.S. debt ceiling expansion. Further inflation, however, could further drive Bitcoin’s role as a hedge.
The market is also expecting the results of the upcoming release of President Donald Trump’s crypto task force report, scheduled for July 30.
Marking six months since the formation of the presidential digital assets working group, the report could become one of the most important crypto policy documents in 2025, likely addressing regulatory reform and stablecoin oversight.
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